Lady Potter
by Rumour of an Alchemist
Summary: Something stirred in the graveyard of Godric's Hollow in early November, 1981... Alternate universe. Standalone piece posted for Hallowe'en.


Disclaimer: I am not J. K. Rowling. I do not own Harry Potter.

Note: The following is a standalone piece which seemed appropriate for putting out with Hallowe'en coming up at the time of initial posting. As with most things I post, it's set in a universe which has gone alternate from canon. Most of it's from Lily's point of view, although the last section is from Severus Snape's. The time frame for it is that it's set at some point in the summer of 1990, with looking back/reflection by Lily on things which have happened since Hallowe'en of 1981.

* * *

It had taken Lady Lily Potter almost eight years to work through the finer details of exactly what had happened to her so that she had a halfway decent understanding of the magic which had resulted in her 'rebirth' three days after she had been buried. The first part of the chain had been obvious: She had been murdered by a dark wizard, using an unforgiveable curse, on Hallowe'en. That had always been an obvious part in the chain of events, and easy to grasp. People had 'come back as' mere _ghosts_ to haunt the world for much less reasons.

The point was, though, that they came back, normally, as _ghosts_. Lily Potter had 'awoken' in her coffin in early November, 1981, with a raging anger and hunger. Fortunately, the first person she had come upon after turning herself into a mist and emerging had been a Death Eater, and even more fortunately, once she had resumed her solid form and quite slaked her immediate thirsts, she had been able to at least recognise her condition and to do the decent thing and decapitate him and fire a blasting curse into his chest so that _he_ would stay dead. It had been quite lucky, really, that she had been buried with her wand, as taking the otherwise necessary steps would have become quite messy.

The fact that Lily had returned, but James was still dead was another clue. As had been the fact that she felt 'the call of blood' which had inevitably drawn her to her sister's house in Privet Drive. That had been fun, but fortunately Lily had already been to Gringotts by then (discovering that something had gone wrong with the wills, although that had proven to be to her advantage) and read through several recent issues of the _Daily Prophet_, so she was halfway up to speed on current events. Even more fortunately, she'd been able to embarrass her sister to issue those all-crucial words inviting her in before Petunia could start demanding explanations. It would have been unfortunate if she hadn't already gained access to the house by the time that she had mentioned to her dear sister that she had returned from beyond death as a vampire.

Petunia and Vernon hadn't been exactly fond of the idea of having an undead Lily around the house, but vampire or not Lily was revoltingly rich now having inherited practically everything from James, and Lily was prepared to pay 'bed and board' which was far more than the Hogwarts headmaster had been prepared to do for them when he summarily dumped Harry on their doorstep. Lily had smashed Vernon and Petunia's (then) best dining table with her fist in frustration after she first read that unbelievable letter Dumbledore had left with Harry for them. The arrogance of the man had been astounding. Then she had had to apologise and repair the table. She hadn't quite become accustomed by that point to her own new strength.

Anyway, the blood wards around Privet Drive had been another piece of the puzzle, tying up Lily's (original) 'sacrifice' of her life, and her need to protect Harry, and the misery of her sister with the situation Petunia and Vernon had unfairly had thrust upon them and other stuff.

It hadn't been until Lily had finally discovered the story of the Deathly Hallows, though – and realised the current owner of at least one of the hallows – that the rest had fallen into place. The headmaster had erected blood wards using 'The Deathstick', and given all the other circumstances, it was no bloody wonder Lily Evans had found herself opening her eyes in her coffin three days after she had been buried.

It was all for the best, though. Lily shuddered to think what kind of miserable lives her sister's family and Harry would have had up until now if she hadn't been recalled to the waking world…

* * *

Disillusioned practically from the word go after her return from the grave as to her former loyalty to the headmaster of Hogwarts (it was disgusting that he hadn't even seen that Sirius had had a trial, Lily considered) Lily had decided that she owed no loyalty to anyone other than her immediate family. Since she had investigated the wards over Privet Drive and discovered that they _did_ appear to be to Harry's benefit, she had informed her sister that she and Harry would remain at Privet Drive – but endeavour to make themselves as useful as possible. With assistance from her contacts at Gringotts, and discreet use of her own abilities, Lily had been able to ensure that Vernon's career and the company that he worked for had flourished. Vernon was now 'executive officer with no specific portfolio' on the board of Grunnings Industrial International. Although Grunnings did a lot of business with the muggle world, they also now worked extensively with the Gringotts goblins and their overseas contacts and allies – the goblins were always interested in precision-engineered hand-tools, and metal alloys prepared to highly specific directions. Lily occasionally showed up at the Grunnings offices or a social function in the capacity of one of Vernon's PA's. Going out in daylight bothered her marginally, insomuch as she couldn't use _all_ her vampiric powers, but she was still a witch, and Grunnings basically had a reputation of being immune to the spying aspects of industrial espionage, thanks to Lily's occasional visits.

And it was ridiculous what she could get away with at night.

Very few people in the wizarding world knew she existed, though. Obviously her Gringotts account managers did, as did Sirius Black whom after a couple of years she had broken out of Azkaban. She had weighed the pros and cons of simply revealing herself and making a statement to the Ministry to the effect that Peter had been their secret keeper, not Sirius, but concluded that the Ministry's prejudices against undead would likely mean that she would be ignored altogether, or that attempts might even be made (in case she corrupted 'The-Boy-Who-Lived') to destroy her outright.

And she had figured in the end that Sirius would enjoy the notoriety of breaking out of Azkaban.

What with the need to maintain aliases and some sort of disguises it had taken far too long to engineer an 'invitation' for herself to Azkaban though, but once one _had_ been arranged, giving her the freedom to come and go as she pleased, she had discovered the rather useful fact that she could (at least at night) control any dementors within sight. That had been _highly_ useful in getting Sirius out, though she had had to be careful not to abuse the ability too much, as she didn't want the dementors removed from Azkaban in case she ever needed to make future visits.

Anyway, Sirius Black now lived in an extension at number four Privet Drive, safely hidden from wizardly attention under the same blood-wards Dumbledore had installed to protect Harry, and occasionally went out to a job in the City of London, where – with his Gringotts contacts and under the alias of 'Simon Bogata' – he was an investment banker. Every once in a while, under cover of a disguise, he would wander back into the wizarding world to check if there was any sign of the treacherous Peter Pettigrew, but there hadn't been any glimpse of the rat animagus yet, and the manhunt for Black had died down several years ago. He was still there on wanted posters, but the wizarding world occupied itself with more recent, more sensational news.

Lily was in two minds over where to send Harry to school. She didn't _like_ the idea of his being under the eye of Albus Dumbledore, but at least Hogwarts didn't involve crossing the sea to get there, and although Lily could apparate across the ocean at night, her ability to do so by day was severely limited. That was one of those odd things where her vampire limitations apparently spilled over and affected her capacity to function as a witch.

If she tried to keep Harry in Privet Drive to home-tutor him, however, that would result in awkward Ministry questions being asked and potential exposure of her own (undead) existence. There'd been a particularly awkward moment only six months or so after Harry and Lily had moved in at number four Privet Drive, when Arabella Figg, of all people, had been pottering around on the street outside and recognised Lily one morning. Fortunately the squib had hailed Lily straight away, wanting to know what was going on and Lily had been able to have a 'chat' with her and to discover what Arabella was even doing in the area? It turned out that Albus Dumbledore had belatedly concluded that relying on just magic and one rather inadequate letter to Petunia and Vernon to ensure to Harry's well-being was perhaps a tad too optimistic, and he had just installed Arabella in a house nearby with orders to report back to him regularly on Harry. With the assistance of a bit of basic vampiric mesmerism Lily had been able to convince Arabella that Lily had 'gone under cover' – rather than actually died – for a secret operation, and that it was essential that she not mention Lily in any communications to anyone or even hint that she existed. Lily had been lucky that Arabella had waved at her that morning, though, wanting to know what was happening rather than simply reporting the sighting back to Dumbledore without giving Lily a chance to intervene. Dumbledore was one of the _last_ people that Lily had wanted to know she was active again, back then.

Anyway, Harry staying in Privet Drive to learn magic would attract the sort of scrutiny which would take more than a chat with a sympathetic, easily hypnotised, middle-aged squib over a mug of coffee to sort out.

But then there was 'the scar'. Lily didn't _like_ that nasty lightning bolt scar on her son's forehead. There was some sort of highly unpleasant magic involved with it, beyond her current ability to understand, and if Harry _did_ go to Hogwarts it was possible that someone like Madam Pomfrey (and perhaps the head of whichever house Harry ended up in) might be able to work out what was going on with it and deal with it accordingly. Lily couldn't see any explanation other than that scar of why Harry could talk to snakes. She hadn't had any such ability whilst she was still alive (although as with most 'lesser' creatures she could make her wishes known to them now she was a vampire), and neither had James had any such 'gift' – nor any of his relatives as far as she knew.

Problems, problems…

* * *

Severus Snape opened the door one overcast August morning to a knock to find Lily on the doorstep, looking as radiantly beautiful as his memory told him that she had ever been. There was a peculiar scent of the flowers which were her namesake in the air and at the back of his mind there was a niggling doubt that there was something not quite right here, beyond the obvious that the woman had been dead and buried for nearly nine years.

"Good morning, Sev. I am the ghost of Hogwarts past, come back to haunt you… woooo." she lifted her arms and wiggled her fingers, green eyes sparkling with mischief. "Can we skip past the 'but you're dead' bit, and move on to the part where you ask me things only you and I are likely to know to ascertain whether I really _am_ who I appear to be, or just someone with a grudge and some sophisticated transfiguration magic trying to slip past your defences?"

Severus pulled his wand out.

"I am _hardly_ going to ask you questions on such intimate details on the doorstep. Whomever you are, I will sweep you for charms and potentially active spells, and then you're going to have to come inside whilst I decide what to do with you."

"Fine by me Sev." she said, the corners of her lips twitching slightly as if at some private joke.

Severus glanced at her suspiciously, then muttered several charms, and studied the woman. There was a wand in a pocket, but no other sources of extraneous magic on her, or charms running.

"Alright. In you come." he crooked his wand. "Keep your wand in your pocket though."

She smiled at him, and stepped over the threshold.

He closed the door behind her, not taking his eye off her, and indicated for her where to go.

"Through there. Into the kitchen."

"You don't seem to have redecorated, Sev." she said, going on ahead of him, looking around with interest. "You've kept the place clean, and maintained, but otherwise the house may as well be dead. But then there's something dead in your eyes, isn't there, Sev?" she sat herself down on a tall stool, and turned to face him, an expression of almost understanding and sympathy on her face. "Was it that night in Godric's Hollow which did it for you?"

Somehow he managed to ignore that remark, and to concentrate on trying to determine who this _actually_ was? Whomever she was, she exhibited unnaturally cold and dense occlumency walls against probing by Severus. Her mind was as solid as a burial vault. He strengthened his own occlumency shields and stared at her.

"Alright, outline the occasion when you first heard you were a witch."

"Playing on the swings with Petunia, and you were spying on us. You said something dumb like 'you're a witch', and Petunia was highly upset by the whole business. There were other meetings we had before Hogwarts, including one where _someone_ accidentally dropped a branch on Petunia. And on the Hogwarts Express, you tried to persuade me Slytherin was the best house, and I should join you there."

"Who are you? How are you doing this?" Severus demanded. He hadn't felt any legilimency, but in addition to the answer to the question he'd asked, she'd provided other details only someone intimately familiar with the early life of Lily Evans could have known.

"Oh, Sev: When Dumbledore left Harry with Petunia, and buried me good and deep in Godric's Hollow, he didn't realise what he'd done. I'm _back_ Sev, better and more dangerous than ever before, and I've been looking forward to this meeting with you for _so_ long. For a former spy, it's pretty dumb of you _not_ to keep mirrors around, but I guess you don't like to look yourself in the face."

Why mirrors, Severus asked himself? What the devil was she talking about? His train of thought derailed, and he stared in horror.

"You're one of the walking undead. A vampire." his brain belatedly pieced the various subtle clues all together. She was a vampire – _and he'd invited her in_. "How long?"

"Since early November 1981. I figured the wizarding world wouldn't appreciate vampire Lily, and I've been keeping a low profile up until now. But now… but now the Hogwarts letters will be going out for Harry's year over the next twelve months and Harry is not going anywhere _near_ Hogwarts unless I have someone reliable on the inside, to keep an eye on him and to be there to invite me in if I ever feel the need to visit." She smiled brightly. "How reliable do you feel, Sev?"

* * *

Author Notes:

I'm a bit confused as to how and what 'ghosts' in canon are, and I'm not sure that in most cases they do 'come back'. Regardless, the section of this story which references ghosts is from Lily's perspective, and whether it's actually what happens in canon or not, Lily thinks of them as being people who've 'come back'.

Canon is currently unclear on vampires (beyond that they exist). Whilst the fact that one attends Slughorn's Christmas party in canon in sixth year seems to indicate that they're tolerated to some extent and are clearly able to sustain themselves in some fashion acceptable to wizarding society, I doubt they're welcomed with open arms generally. I've assumed that Lily in this story is something like Count Dracula in terms of limitations and what she can do. If that's not how vampires usually 'work' in the Harry Potter universe, it's the fault of the unique circumstances surrounding her own return from the grave. (Note that Count Dracula, in Bram Stoker's original novel, has no trouble wandering around in broad daylight, although his vampiric powers are restricted.)

I doubt Sirius Black has inherited the Black family fortune or head of house role by this point (in canon his grandfather Arcturus doesn't die until 1991, whom I assume would have the head of house role and control of the majority of the finances) but he's been in covert contact with some of his more sympathetic relatives (whom he trusts to keep their mouths shut), and can get by.


End file.
